Xi Jinping Lands in Pyongyang for First North Korea Visit in Seven Years, Vowing Deeper Ties With Kim Jong Un

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pyongyang on Monday for his first visit to North Korea in nearly seven years, opening a two-day state visit that both governments are using to project a renewed front of solidarity at a moment of deep uncertainty across the region.

Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, were met at Pyongyang's international airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, amid a 21-gun salute and the fanfare of a military band that played both countries' national anthems. The choreographed welcome — the kind of pageantry the secretive state reserves for its most important guests — underscored how much weight Kim is placing on the encounter. It is Xi's first overseas trip of the year, a signal of where Beijing wants its attention seen to be.

Shortly after the ceremony, Xi called for deepening "strategic coordination and cooperation" between the two neighbors, language that Chinese officials use to describe an alliance they want to bind more tightly. The visit was timed to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, the mutual-defense pact that remains the formal backbone of the relationship and one of the only such treaties Beijing maintains with any country.

Analysts said the trip is as much about Moscow as about Pyongyang. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, North Korea has supplied Russia with artillery shells, missiles and, by Western and Ukrainian accounts, thousands of troops to fight on the front — a partnership that has given Kim new leverage and a powerful patron beyond China. Experts say Beijing is anxious about being sidelined and is moving to reassert the influence it has historically held over its smaller neighbor, while also keeping a closer eye on the advanced military technology North Korea may be acquiring in exchange.

For Kim, the optics of hosting the leader of the world's second-largest economy are valuable at home and abroad, reinforcing his claim to stand alongside the major powers rather than as an isolated outlier. For Xi, the visit is a reminder to Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that China still sits at the center of the Korean Peninsula's diplomacy. The two leaders were expected to hold formal talks before Xi departs on Tuesday, with the substance of any agreements — economic, military or political — likely to be parsed closely by governments across Asia and beyond.